History

In 2002 St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital was engaging in an expansion project.[1] In January 2003 some residents asked the City of Houston to reclassify University Boulevard as a residential street in order to control the amount of traffic on the street.[2] The Southgate Civic Club asked for a street closure on Southgate Boulevard to prevent traffic from the Texas Medical Center from reaching the subdivision. In late December 2003 the City of Houston Public Works Department closed a portion of Southgate Boulevard to block Medical Center traffic.[3] In 2003, on weekdays, 38% of the vehicle traffic on Southgate Boulevard did not originate from the neighborhood.[4] The Houston Fire Department had stated opposition to the street closures.[5] In December 2003 the City of Houston closed Southgate east of Travis Street, preventing commuters to a St. Luke's office building from parking in the neighborhood.[6] Deborah Mann Lake of the Houston Chronicle. said that the closure of Southgate Boulevard did not bring very many complaints.[7]

In 2004 residents considered establishing a property owners association to better prevent developments not desirable to the community from occurring and to more strongly enforce deed restrictions. Some residents believed that a property owners association could gain too much power and cause the community's direction to fall into an undesirable power authority.[8] In 2004 Richard Merrill, the president of the Southgate Civic Club, said that a majority of residents supported the idea of a property owners association. One resident, Michael Bonderer, launched a campaign against the idea of a property owners association and put a sign in his yard. He was banned from the Southgate community message board, which had been established to discuss the property owner issue.[9]

Cityscape

Trees line the neighborhood streets. In 2002 Southgate had 573 houses. Many of the houses were built in the 1930s and the 1940s. Unlike surrounding communities like the City of West University Place and Southampton, by 2002 few of the original houses in Southgate had been demolished and replaced with new development. Because there is less variety in the housing styles, the pricing range was more narrow than in other areas. In 2002 the lowest housing prices were a bit below $300,000 ($390,000 in current money) and most of the original two story houses sold in the $400,000 ($530,000 in current money) range. The small number of newer houses often had prices of over $700,000 ($920,000 in current money).[13] In 2002 Feser said that Southgate had similarities to the communities making up Morningside Place.[13] By 2010 the housing stock included several restored 1930s houses and some more recent modern houses. Raj Mankad of the Houston Chronicle said that the housing stock "demonstrates both stability and openness to innovation."[11]